How Do I Know When Someone Is Twisting Scripture?

So, if you don't know the Bible very well, and you just have someone come along and say, hey, Sodom and Gomorrah, God destroyed them because they weren't being hospitable, and it says it right here in Ezekiel, that's how I know.

If you don't know the Bible very well, then that sounds like a pretty good argument. All right, Tim, the question for today's episode is, how do I know when someone is twisting scripture?

Know the Bible Before You Can Spot a Counterfeit

Yeah, when I worked at the bank, one of the things that they taught you is that if you're going to identify a counterfeit, the best thing you can do is study the real thing. That really does help you as it relates to biblical interpretation.

So if you don't know what the Bible says, then you're really going to have a very difficult time trying to answer the question that you're asking. Because you really just don't have a lot in the toolkit, so to speak, that is going to be able to help you to try to sort out if what they're saying is consistent with the rest of scripture.

And the best thing you can do is just familiarize yourself with the book, and the more that you're familiarized with the Bible, one of the things you're going to find is that when an individual makes a certain claim about what the Bible is saying, you have so much to draw on as it relates to whatever the passage is in question.

So I mean, I've been in plenty of discussions with people where they're basically arguing that the Bible is saying some absurd thing, or whatever it is that they're saying it says. Most of the time, the things that they're saying can be refuted by just reading the verse before what they're talking about, or after what they're talking about, it's almost that bad.

Almost every time when individuals are making certain claims about what the Bible is saying, they really have no idea what surrounds the thing that they're saying. So they don't know the broader context.

Exegesis Must Explain What a Passage Means, Not Just What It Doesn't Mean

Some people will do what I describe as the context dodge, where anytime you make a claim about the Bible, they'll immediately say, well, you're taking that out of context. And that kind of becomes an all-purpose dismissal to anything that you're actually saying.

But I mean, taken rightly, if you're going to explain what the context actually means, for that to make sense to say you're taking that out of context, you have to explain from the context why what they're saying is a misunderstanding of the claim that they've made, essentially.

Right. Yeah, if that's not the context, then you have to actually understand what the context is to even know that it's not the right context, right?

Well, yeah, you can't just flip out, you know, you're taking that out of context. You have to actually point to something in the context that disagrees with what they're saying, or puts what they're saying in a different light.

So, I mean, the best thing you can do if you want to understand if someone is twisting scripture is obviously just to know the book inside and out. And the more that you know it, the more that you see, oh man, you don't even know what the situation is that's being addressed, right?

You don't know the situation, you don't know the story, you don't know the context, you don't know anything, you don't know the argument, right? You don't know the argument of the book, you don't know why that was put there, you know, what its intention was, what its reason was.

And so, the best thing you can do is just know the Bible, and the more that you know the Bible, the more that you see it, and the more painful it actually becomes. So there's that, but then, I mean, I think in general, the most common tactic that many people, particularly on the left, are doing is they're just trying to take what I describe as a destructive approach to scripture.

And so, most of what they're doing is basically trying to make the Bible irrelevant. And one of the things I've learned over time is that I'm not going to take anything you say about any passage seriously, unless you can tell me why it's there.

And a lot of people have some very sophisticated ways of making certain details of the passage irrelevant, but if you want a pro-tip to figure out when they're twisting the Bible, the pro-tip is just ask yourself, did they explain what it meant, or did they just explain what it didn't mean?

Didn't mean, yeah. What it didn't mean, yeah. So they can do the prescriptive-descriptive-dodge kind of thing, they can do the you're-taking-that-out-of-context kind of dodge, they can throw a lot of theological terms on there.

But at the end of the day, did they explain it or not? And if they didn't explain it, then you can be pretty confident that they're basically playing the role of Satan, and you shouldn't listen to them in that way.

Satan's Strategy of Questioning What God Said

What do you mean, playing the role of Satan? Well, Satan's whole tactic was, did God say, essentially? So that was his plan in the gardens, to call and question what God says. And part of what it means to be a sinful human being is to mean that, like, if God gives us a rule or gives us something to say, or gives us something that he expects us to do, there's going to be something that is in us that rises up and tries to make it difficult or tries to make it unreasonable or complicated.

And there's basically any number of either sophisticated or downright stupid ways that people can do this basic thing. But if they're not explaining to you what it means, then, I mean, essentially, they're not helpful.

Yeah, I've noticed that a lot. You know, I've seen people, you'll see various passages that they're referencing, and they will say, like, hey, you know, like, this doesn't mean blah, blah, blah, whatever.

One example would be, like, Paul's, you know, prohibition against men with long hair, right? So you'll have people come along who will say, this doesn't mean that men can't have long hair. You know, and it's like, okay, like, all right, let's just, like, you know, let's just go with that for a minute.

What does it mean, then? If it doesn't mean that, what does it mean, you know? And I think that you can push people on that, and then eventually they'll come up with some kind of answer. But then a lot of people try to treat that first initial, it doesn't mean you can't have long hair, as, they treat that as sufficient.

Like an authoritative proclamation that they've done the job of the exegete at that point.

Yeah, when all you've done is you've made a claim and you haven't backed any of it up.

You've made a claim, you haven't backed any of it up. I mean, you could, you know, a lot of times what people are doing in those kind of scenarios is that they'll basically, like, play the, like, let's take this to the logical, like, logical conclusion kind of game and point out extreme examples and point out hard cases.

You know, but the end result of it all is you still have a verse that you've just fundamentally ignored, right?

Yeah, and that's what makes it so funny once you realize that that's what's happening, is because essentially, yeah, all you're doing at that point is you're saying, well, this verse doesn't count anymore.

It doesn't say, you know, it's irrelevant.

It doesn't mean anything for us today, you know?

Right, and so, I mean, like, that's where, like, you have to, like, once you're sensitive to the game, like, one of the things you have to do is you have to just insist repeatedly, if you can't tell me what it means, then I'm not going to listen to you, right?

Like, and so, I'm not interested in, like, the exegesis of Satan here. And it seems like all you're good at is just doing what Satan does here. And I mean, and that sounds offensive to people, but, like, you have to call them on it.

Like, hey, I don't want to hear what it doesn't mean. I want to hear what it means. What does it mean? Yeah. You know, and if you can't tell me what it means, then, like, how do I know that you're not just twisting scripture?

And so, that's something that I've found over and over again, and that can take various forms of sophistication. But, you know, at the end of the day, if they don't tell you why it's there, then, you know, you don't want to hear it, right?

So, so... Yeah, because that's basically just step one, right?

Yeah, step one is tell me what it means, right? So, like, if I've taken it out of context, then show me why the context changes it, and tell me what it actually means, right? So, don't just tell me I've taken it out of context.

Tell me how the context refutes what I'm saying, and then explain to me what it actually means. If you can't do that, then all you're... You're just a child playing at a game that you don't understand, right?

Like, any child can, like, you know, take a work of art and smash it to bits, right? And so, you're not doing anything serious at that point. You're just being juvenile. You're just basically dismissing a work of art and, you know, ignoring it.

And so, as I said, I mean, like, that can take, like, more sophisticated-sounding forms, but that's always a flag that you have someone who's twisting the thing when, like, the end product of it is that they, you know, they really can't tell you what it says at all.

Reading the Broader Context and the Whole Canon

But then, you know, other ways to... I mean, after you're reading the Bible, you know, again and again and again, you understand the context, you can see things a lot clearer. But one of the things that you're going to see is that, like, when a person makes a certain claim and it just contradicts, like, the things that are happening in the context itself, it contacts the argument of the book, of the, you know, the section that you're in.

It contacts just other doctrines in Scripture, like, or it contradicts other doctrines in Scripture. I mean, those are just sure signs that someone is gone awry at some point. Mm-hmm, yeah.

And, you know, one of the helpful things for me when I was in school was, basically, you know, we had, like, a, I mean, a pretty, like, basic intro-level hermeneutic class, right, that just, it taught you, I mean, just the basics of it.

And essentially, you could pretty much boil down the class to, like, hey, okay, so you've got to look at, you've got to look at a few things when you're reading any passage of Scripture. You need to look at who wrote it.

You need to look at who they wrote it to. You know, you need to try and have at least, like, a basic understanding of why they're writing it to whatever the specific audience is, right? Sure. And then you have to look at, like, that within the broader context of Scripture.

Sure. So you're looking at a passage, you're reading around that passage to see what's being discussed, and you're letting that inform your understanding of whatever specific passage of Scripture.

And then you're looking at the whole expanse of Scripture, basically, as a safeguard, you know, for you, because we understand that the Bible doesn't contradict itself. So there are going to be statements made in the Bible that at surface level seem confusing or sound like they're contradicting something, but then once you read other portions of Scripture, you have a better understanding of whatever passage you're looking at, what it actually means.

But then once you're done doing all of that, you have to ask yourself, like, how does this apply today, right? Sure. Because, you know, not everything is going to literally apply to us the same way that it would have, say, the Ephesians.

But then I think you do have to be careful with all of that, because you can get yourself to a point, and I've interacted with these types of people before, who basically look at the New Testament and say, none of it applies to us.

And because, you know, Paul, for example, he was writing to the Ephesians, right? So that's for the Ephesians. I mean, I've seen a lot of people who take this way too far and take the whole context thing to basically mean, like, hey, women can be pastors, because Paul was just telling the guys over in Ephesus that the women can't be pastors, you know?

Well, that's where, you know, it's just a destructive approach at that point, where they're not actually telling you what it means to us, you know, how does it apply to us anyway. It's just, well, that can't possibly be, you know, what it means, because it only applies to this one group.

And as you're saying, I mean, a lot of this is just a broader discussion on hermeneutics, so more that you can, you know, study hermeneutics and, you know, learn how the Bible is put together and do the things that you're saying, you know.

You know, you're reading a verse in its immediate context, and then you're reading it in its broader, you know, context within the book. And then within, you know, so, like, within the argument of the book, within the book itself, within its, you know, place within the canon, within its, you know, covenant that it applies to, within the whole Bible itself.

And so there's a lot of, I mean, this can get fairly sophisticated. And it's, the more that you learn about biblical interpretation, the more easier it is to see, you know, I mean, I think the short of it is just read the Bible a lot.

And you'll see. Yeah, yeah, I really do. I totally agree with you. I think it's very hard to know what God has said when you don't ever look and see what God has said, right?

Well, I mean, it's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think you can make it real complicated, but then make it real simple. Like, it is real simple, right? So, like, meaning, like, everyone, like, the thing is, everyone knows how to do this.

You know, like, it's just, like, meaning, you know, I mean, there was a time when I was in seminary and I came home and I was hanging out with my sister and she was watching a TV show with her friend.

And so I just thought, well, I'll hang out with them just to be a good brother or whatever and see what they're doing, you know, kind of thing. And I mean, this is me, I'm coming from, like, seminary and I spent all day long reading, you know, Bible books and all, you know, Bible, you know, theology books, whatever.

I'm coming home and she's, so she's filling me in on the story, you know, some kind of, you know, drama kind of story or whatever. But then, so she plays, you know, we're watching the episode or whatever and, you know, the two girls, like, see each other, right?

And then all of a sudden they're just staring at each other and it seems like a polite conversation. And, you know, her and her friend are basically like, oh, it's so awkward, it's so awkward. Like, what's awkward about it?

They're just staring at each other, right? And so she stops it and she explains, well, the last time they saw each other, they were having some kind of argument or whatever. And, you know, and this is the first time I've seen each other since six months and all that.

And it's like, oh, okay. And so then, you know, they play it a little bit and then all of a sudden something else happens. They stop it and they give me the context and they, you know, they do all that.

And explain the, you know, the storyline. And at some point it dawned on me, they're doing what I'm doing with a TV show, right? Like, this is what I do. Like, this is what I do. I read it a little bit in the book, right?

I stop, I explain, right? It's like a running commentary. They're giving me a running commentary of this TV show. But then my point was, my point is just to say that sometimes we can make it a lot more complicated than what it actually is.

But the thing is, like, if you binge watch that show over and over and over again, you're gonna know it. And you're gonna know when someone's misrepresenting it, right? Yeah. Like, you're gonna know. And you don't have to, like, there's sophisticated ways we could tell you, like, why.

But then there's, you know, it really just amounts to be real familiar with it, right? Yeah. The more you're familiar with it, the more it just becomes a joke when someone comes along and, you know, makes some kind of audacious, like, ridiculous claim.

Because you can just point to, like, no, it says it right here. And it says it right here.

And it says it right here. You know, it says it right here. You know, so sorry. Yeah, you know, one example I think of is, there's a lot of people who will look at Sodom and Gomorrah and say that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because they weren't being hospitable, right?

Right. They were poor hosts, which, I mean, to be fair, they were definitely poor hosts. I wouldn't appreciate that kind of welcome either. You know, but then that's the argument. And the reason they're arguing that is because Ezekiel, like, 18, I think, mentioned something about hospitality with Sodom and Gomorrah.

And so if you don't know the Bible very well, and you just have someone come along and say, hey, Sodom and Gomorrah, God destroyed them because they weren't being hospitable. And it says it right here in Ezekiel.

That's how I know. If you don't know the Bible very well, then that sounds like a pretty good argument. Like, hey, look, you took one part of scripture and then you're just applying another part of scripture that's trying to act as a commentary on it, right?

That checks out. The problem is that's not the only place in the Bible that talks about Sodom and Gomorrah, right? And so there's plenty, there's a lot of, there's a few other, I guess, at least a few other places that come to my mind where Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned.

And one of them is Jude, right? And in the book of Jude, he specifically explains that they were destroyed in part because of their sexual immorality. And it's just plain as day. It just literally says sexual immorality.

And so if you know that Jude says that, then you look at these arguments and you're just like, I mean, I was joking with a guy, you know, saying someone had made that argument and I basically just responded with, I guess this guy's just never read Jude, you know, maybe the pages were stuck together or something.

Something, it's a small book, maybe he just accidentally flipped through it. But I'm joking about it because it's such a foolish thing to even argue.

Well, it's foolish to argue from the account itself, the account itself within Genesis, but then even like the Ezekiel passage you're talking about, it's Ezekiel 16. If you read further in Ezekiel 16 even, right?

So just read just a little further. And in verse 51, it says that you have committed more abominations than they and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed.

And so even within the passage they're mentioning that talks about like the lack of hospitality and all that. It talks about the abominable practices, even within the passage, if you read just a little further.

And if you know the Old Testament,.

Then you understand that the abominable practices is not referring to hospitality. That's right, that's right.

I mean, it's just absurd, yeah. So, I mean, but then that's just another example of like, just the more that you know, you know about Jude, you know about what's happening in Genesis, you know what is happening, just further a few more verses in Ezekiel.

I mean, almost without fail with these kinds of things, like someone makes some kind of like ridiculous claim, you could just read a little bit further. And sometimes it's just the next verse, you know, where you just read a little bit further.

And yeah, there was a funny thing that happened on Twitter where I was essentially saying that, you know, women should keep silent in the churches or whatever. And they were saying, that was just for that church, you know, and I just, like, they didn't like click on my picture because on my picture, it showed like, right before that, it says, as is my rule in all the churches, you know?

And they, you know, and it's just like, that's just not, that's only for that church. And I was like, I guess you didn't click on the picture, man. But I mean, almost like without fail, it's really funny about it is, it's just, if they would just read the verse before or after it almost, you know, takes everything.

Modern Issues, Anachronism, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

Now, is there anything to be said about. Like, I guess, just as the last thing to talk about briefly, I know a lot of people, what they tend to do whenever they're, you know, falsely presenting scriptures, they try to read current issues into a specific passage.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

I mean, I can think of a lot of examples.

Of what you're talking about, but keep on going. So, yeah, so, you know, especially, so like the thing, the main issues that are trying to be read into scripture now are like the, you know, LGBTQ stuff.

CRT, I think is one, you know, even like the vaccine in some ways, you know, if you think about like Romans 13, trying to, trying to really try, you know, force those things into what the passage means.

And so how do you differentiate some of that stuff? Because obviously there, I mean, there are things that the Bible says, you know, like there's no passage in the Bible that says, you know, don't watch porn online, right?

The internet wasn't a thing. So obviously they're not going to write about watching pornography on your computer, but then that doesn't mean that there's no passages that would condemn it, right?

Yeah, well, that's where, you know, most often when that kind of thing happens, what you're trying to talk about is that they'll, they'll take a very modern term and then they'll make a very specific demand that in order for that to be wrong, the Bible needs to use like specific language that only developed recently, right?

And so, I mean, that's just a, you know, engaging in anachronism at that point, like the Bible uses the language that it uses. Now, I mean, one of the things we believe is we believe the Bible is sufficient for life and godliness.

God in his word has given us all things related to life and godliness. And what that means is he's given us principles that are timeless within the Bible that we can apply to any given situation. But if you're going to make some sort of ridiculous demand that the Bible speak to whatever new word it is that you invented two minutes ago, right?

Well, sure, you can show that it's irrelevant. It doesn't have anything to say there. But then the point though, is are there principles in the Bible to speak to the issue that you're talking about? So with like porn, yeah, I mean, like that pornography didn't exist back then in the same way that it does right now.

So, but that doesn't matter. I mean, like there are passages within the old covenant law that talk about not uncovering the nakedness of, you know, other people. There's, you know, Paul talks about there's presentable parts and there's unpresentable parts.

You know, Jesus talks about, you know, not looking on a woman with lust. So there's principles that we can apply that would rule out a certain thing. But if you're expecting that there's some sort of, the Bible is going to use every specific word that you're describing, then it's not going to do that because we make up new words every day.

Yeah.

And we're speaking a language that didn't even exist when the Bible was being written.

Yeah, right. And so I guess just unrealistic expectation, but that is another way they try to get out of the plain sense of the text and make it essentially relevant, you know, is by, you know, appealing to modern words and demanding that, like very specific questions that are unreasonable.

Which is why, which is why we have to, which is why it's so important to understand the immediate context of the passage, right? Sure. Okay. All right. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion.

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